Literature Review
Questions:
Does the existing HVAC system or other cooling system have the capability to match with the cooling requirement of the occupants?
Does the design strategy being adapted by the building is efficient in terms of energy consumption?
What are the benefits of determining suitable air conditioning strategy for residential buildings?
This research is based on determining the design strategy of air conditioning for a residential building. The focus of this research is to identify gaps in the previous studies available on the topic or the same research area. The air conditioning system in a building is responsible for around 50% of the energy being consumed and other 50% is consumed by other services in the building. Hence, it is essential to determine effective design strategies for air conditioning in a building. The reduction in energy being consumed by air conditioning will help to increase savings on consumption along with carbon emissions (Grondzik and Kwok 2014). In this study, the proposal for conducting research on design strategy for air conditioning in a residential building has been prepared to discuss on motivation behind the research. Further, a timeframe has also been prepared to illustrate upon finance activities along with duration required to complete the research project.
This study is based on identifying the effective design strategies for implementation of air conditioning to suit the cooling needs in a residential building. The passive cooling strategies that gains control over heat dissipation is considered as suitable for consistent climatic areas whereas in modern houses, the changing temperature is a major issue being faced by the occupants (Chua et al. 2013). The poor design of buildings often causes the heat to be trapped that increases indoor temperature. The roof area and surrounding walls of a building is considered as the most critical part due to the fact that these are exposed to heat being caused by high solar radiation. The determination of proper design strategies will help to effectively reduce the consumption of energy in a building as well as provide comfort to the occupants (Vakiloroaya et al. 2014). This particular study has been undertaken to determine the effective design strategies for air conditioning in a residential building so that the comfort requirement of occupants are fulfilled with respect to the changing climate.
The developing countries majorly that are located in tropical regions have dry climate and there is existence of special problems due to extreme heat retention by the buildings if ventilation is not adequate for cooling at night. A major portion of the buildings being designed in such climatic regions are not suitable for occupants as those are poorly designed and no design strategy is adapted for the climate (Alibabaei et al. 2017). The residential buildings are often designed without considering the parameters that are responsible to ensure thermal comfort along with efficient use of energy. Hence, the dependence on artificial lighting and ventilation is prevalent in almost every residential building. However, power disruption on a frequent basis and load shedding during the summer or hot days makes the life of occupants much troublesome. The circumstance turns out to be more terrible during the hot summer days in between the period of mid-March and early May as there is gradual increase in the surrounding temperature (Yang, Yan and Lam 2014). Amid this period, the demand in the use of electricity goes up to its most elevated amount due to hot weather and in addition the demand increases to supplement the cooling requirements in the residential buildings.
Research Methodology
The buildings that does not have dynamic strategies to meet the cooling requirements during the rising demand of energy will incur poor indoor atmosphere. This often leads to exhaustion along with issues related to health and safety (Taleb 2014). This study will deal with describing the approach for passive air conditioning design strategies suitable in residential buildings. The poor design of buildings often causes the heat to be trapped that increases indoor temperature. The roof area and surrounding walls of a building is considered as the most critical part due to the fact that these are exposed to heat being caused by high solar radiation. The determination of proper design strategies will help to effectively reduce the consumption of energy in a building as well as provide comfort to the occupants.
There are two fundamental techniques for cooling of residential buildings in a tropical atmosphere and they are oppositely inverse in nature. It is imperative to comprehend the core philosophy of both the strategies to confirm that could be appropriately adjusted for residential buildings (Shirazi et al. 2016). Commonly, a plan that is genuinely dedicated to one technique or the other, cannot generally be effectively changed over into the other. The principal procedure is passive cooling. Out of the two methodologies, this is the one that can be considered naturally dependable and having a place with economical plan. Homes with passive cooling uses extensive open areas for allowing cross-breezes through the spaces very easily and utilize openings in high regions to enable warmed air to rise and escape (Kim et al. 2016). The objective of passive cooling is to utilize normal conduct of air to upgrade ventilation and diminish inside temperatures in fabricated spaces. The second technique is mechanical cooling. Mechanical cooling utilizes equipment to accomplish cooling of interior spaces. Clearly, mechanical cooling can help to achieve thermal comfort by substantially higher decrease in temperatures that is not possible by means of passive cooling (Yoon, Bladick and Novoselac 2014). Despite the fact that there is energy being spent, though passive cooling utilizes no energy, this does not imply that mechanical cooling is not economics dependable. Hence, this research is based on determining the suitable air conditioning design strategy for residential buildings.
The aim of this research is to study the air conditioning design strategy for a residential building. It is one of the most critical criteria or issue being faced by the occupants of building situated in a rigorous changing climatic zone. Some of the research questions that are prepared to conduct this study in details are provided as below.
Data Analysis and Findings
The implementation of proper design strategy for air conditioning in residential building is an essential element to fulfill the cooling requirement of the occupants. The buildings situated in continuously changing climate needs proper design strategy for installation of air conditioning. The objectives that have been prepared for conducting this particular research are presented as below:
- To determine the capabilities of existing HVAC system or other cooling system for matching the cooling requirement of occupants of a residential building.
- To identify whether the adapted strategy is suitable for the residential building in terms of energy consumption.
- To evaluate the benefits of determining suitable air conditioning strategy for residential buildings.
Chapter 1: Introduction – This chapter will provide a brief overview of the undertaken topic along with the aims and objectives determined for the project. This chapter will introduce the purpose behind undertaking this particular topic for research. In this section, the problems that are existing related to the undertaken topic area will be discussed to identify the gaps in previous studies on the same topic.
Chapter 2: Literature Review – This chapter will comprise of critically reviewing the existing articles or journals on various design strategies for air conditioning in buildings. The study of online available articles and journals will help to identify gaps in the knowledge area (Attia and Carlucci 2015). This section will also illustrate upon the essential components that are required for determining the design strategy of air conditioning.
Chapter 3: Research Methodology – This chapter will also help to determine the various methods for conducting the research. This section will provide the information regarding the type of research that have to be conducted with the topic. Further, the discussions will be carried out on the process of data collection and sampling for the research on the topic (Chen, Yang and Lu 2015). This chapter will also deal with designing the process for research.
Chapter 4: Data analysis and Findings – This chapter will focus on data analysis that will be done on the data that has been collected with the help of statistical tools. The interpretation of the results gained from analysis of the gathered data will be carried out in this section. The findings from the data analysis will be provided in this section to determine the output from the research.
Chapter 5: Conclusion and Recommendations – This chapter will focus on the results being achieved from data analysis and the overall research. In this section, a conclusion will be drawn to the study to summarize the results being gathered from the entire study. Further, some recommendations will also be provided in this section to suggest improvements that can be made in future study.
Task Name |
Duration |
Start |
Finish |
Predecessors |
Resource Names |
Design strategy of air-conditioning for a residential building |
59 days |
Fri 04-08-17 |
Wed 25-10-17 |
||
Selection of the research topic |
2 days |
Fri 04-08-17 |
Mon 07-08-17 |
Researcher, Supervisor |
|
Analysis of requirements |
3 days |
Tue 08-08-17 |
Thu 10-08-17 |
1 |
Researcher |
Feasibility study for the research topic |
2 days |
Fri 11-08-17 |
Mon 14-08-17 |
2 |
Researcher |
Conducting thorough literature review for identification of gaps |
5 days |
Tue 15-08-17 |
Mon 21-08-17 |
3 |
Researcher |
Identification of specific aims for the project |
2 days |
Tue 22-08-17 |
Wed 23-08-17 |
4,2 |
Researcher |
Developing objectives related to the specific project |
2 days |
Thu 24-08-17 |
Fri 25-08-17 |
5 |
Researcher |
Research existing strategies for design of air-conditioning |
4 days |
Wed 18-10-17 |
Mon 23-10-17 |
6 |
Researcher |
Prepare draft budget for the project |
3 days |
Mon 28-08-17 |
Wed 30-08-17 |
3,6 |
Researcher |
Obtaining advice/guidance from colleagues as well as other members |
4 days |
Thu 31-08-17 |
Tue 05-09-17 |
8 |
Researcher |
Determining audience of the project |
3 days |
Wed 06-09-17 |
Fri 08-09-17 |
9 |
Researcher[50%], Supervisor[50%] |
Preparing draft proposal |
2 days |
Mon 11-09-17 |
Tue 12-09-17 |
10 |
Researcher |
Review of prepared proposal |
1 day |
Wed 13-09-17 |
Wed 13-09-17 |
11,5,9 |
Supervisor |
Submission of revised proposal |
3 days |
Thu 14-09-17 |
Mon 18-09-17 |
12 |
Researcher |
Identification of sources for data collection |
4 days |
Tue 19-09-17 |
Fri 22-09-17 |
13 |
Researcher |
Gathering of data from primary as well as secondary sources |
5 days |
Mon 25-09-17 |
Fri 29-09-17 |
14 |
Researcher |
Analysis of data |
2 days |
Mon 02-10-17 |
Tue 03-10-17 |
15 |
Researcher, Supervisor |
Discussion of the findings |
3 days |
Wed 04-10-17 |
Fri 06-10-17 |
16 |
Researcher |
Preparing report with the gathered results |
2 days |
Mon 09-10-17 |
Tue 10-10-17 |
17,15,16 |
Researcher |
Drawing conclusion to the study |
2 days |
Wed 11-10-17 |
Thu 12-10-17 |
18 |
Researcher |
Recommendations based on the results and findings |
1 day |
Fri 13-10-17 |
Fri 13-10-17 |
19 |
Researcher, Supervisor |
Submission of draft report |
2 days |
Mon 16-10-17 |
Tue 17-10-17 |
20 |
Researcher |
Review of prepared report |
3 days |
Wed 18-10-17 |
Fri 20-10-17 |
21 |
Supervisor |
Approval from supervisor |
1 day |
Mon 23-10-17 |
Mon 23-10-17 |
22 |
Supervisor |
Submission of final project report |
2 days |
Tue 24-10-17 |
Wed 25-10-17 |
23 |
Researcher |
References
Ai, Z.T. and Mak, C.M., 2016. Short-term mechanical ventilation of air-conditioned residential buildings: A general design framework and guidelines. Building and Environment, 108, pp.12-22.
Alibabaei, N., Fung, A.S., Raahemifar, K. and Moghimi, A., 2017. Effects of intelligent strategy planning models on residential HVAC system energy demand and cost during the heating and cooling seasons. Applied Energy, 185, pp.29-43.
Attia, S. and Carlucci, S., 2015. Impact of different thermal comfort models on zero energy residential buildings in hot climate. Energy and Buildings, 102, pp.117-128.
Chen, X., Yang, H. and Lu, L., 2015. A comprehensive review on passive design accounting in green building rating tools. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 50, pp.1425-1436.
Chen, X., Yang, H. and Sun, K., 2017. Developing a meta-model for sensitivity analyses and prediction of building performance for passively designed high-rise residential buildings. Applied Energy, 194, pp.422-439.
Chua, K.J., Chou, S.K., Yang, W.M. and Yan, J., 2013. Achieving better energy-efficient air conditioning–a review of technologies and strategies. Applied Energy, 104, pp.87-104.
Grondzik, W.T. and Kwok, A.G., 2014. Mechanical and electrical equipment for buildings. John Wiley & Sons.
Kim, J., business, R., Parkinson, T., Candido, C., Cooper, P., Ma, Z. and Saman, W., 2016. Field study of air conditioning and thermal comfort in residential buildings.
Ruiz, P.A., De La Flor, F.S., Felix, J.M., Lissén, J.S. and Martín, J.G., 2016. Applying the HVAC systems in an integrated optimization method for residential building’s design. A case study in Spain. Energy and Buildings, 119, pp.84.
Shirazi, A., Pintaldi, S., White, S.D., Morrison, G.L., Rosengarten, G. and Taylor, R.A., 2016. Solar-assisted absorption air-conditioning systems in buildings: control strategies and operational modes. Applied Thermal Engineering, 92, pp.246-260.
Taleb, H.M., 2014. Using passive cooling strategies to improve thermal performance and reduce energy consumption of residential buildings in UAE buildings. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 3(2), pp.154-165.
Vakiloroaya, V., Samali, B., Fakhar, A. and Pishghadam, K., 2014. A review of different strategies for HVAC energy saving. Management Conversion and Management, 77, pp.738-754.
Yang, L., Yan, H. and Lam, J.C., 2014. Thermal comfort and building energy consumption implications–a review. Applied Energy, 115, pp.164-173.
Yoon, J.H., Bladick, R. and Novoselac, A., 2014. Demand response for residential buildings based on dynamic price of electricity. Energy and Buildings, 80, pp.531-541.